What's the difference btw Dreamweaver and Frontpage?

Question

Dreamweaver is more expensive, but it seems like more people are using it than Frontpage. Any experienced users to share about:
(1) the pros and cons of each?
(2) What kind of webpage you have used them to create?
(3) Lastly, this question may sound silly but I do appreciate if you could share with me your point of view: Since both of the software are not that cheap (it cost $399, my goodness), and you have to go through the hassle of learning how to create website and using these softwares, why not just get a web designer to create a website that you want?

Answer 1

It's all preference. They're just two different companies. Dreamweaver has some pre-built code that you can add to your webpages, although frontpage does to --- but they are kind of boring. Frontpage is a little bit easier to use, in my oppinion. They both will deliver you the same results though. I believe that Frontpage might even be cheaper if purchased through ebay. Do you know how much a website designer can cost you? I've worked on websites from fortune 1000 companies to one person owned websites and the cost is not cheap. My company would charge nothing less than 1,000 dollars for a website. You got to think about the man hours involved. You have to create graphics, you have to program the site, you have to host the site, buy the domain. It's not just like slapping it on the internet and there you go.

Frontpage will create any type of webpage you want, html, htm, php, asp, etc.

I would suggest going to w3schools.com and learning HTML. This could save you a lot of money and time and it is simple to learn.

Answer 2

I suppose FrontPage may seem easier to a complete novice, but not that much easier. I mean, Dreamweaver has a good drag and drop interface too. I personally hate frontpage. From the perspective of someone who is actually into doing some of the coding by hand, Frontpage is really frustrating. If you try to look at the code it generates you see & lt ; html & gt ; (no spaces...yahoo actually converts this to html characters for legibility if I leave out the spaces) rather than (this is a tag in case you don't know html). Dreamweaver allows you to work from both ends rather than just a front end. Are you planning to do this for a business or just personal? I know that personal licenses cost less than business licenses. If you take a class that involves dreamweaver you might be able to get a student license free. Also, if you don't think it will take you too long to design your page and you only need it once, you can download a 30-day free trial.

Answer 3

(1)
Frontpage is initially easier to learn, and comes with many prebuilt themes. However, it is often accused of creating a lot of "junk" HTML, extra HTML that you don't need in order to view the website correctly.

Dreamweaver can be harder to learn, and doesn't come with any prebuilt themes. However, it seems to understand other web languages (such as PHP, JSP) better than Frontpage, and it seems to put out less "junk" HTML, and has better support for stylesheets (especially in the newer versions).

(2)
I've pretty much made only school project websites in Frontpage, but it is easy to make a quick website in Frontpage. While where I work now I use only Dreamweaver. However, I use the code view in Dreamweaver, not the design view. And I have made several production websites in Dreamweaver.

(3)
By making your own website, you can save a lot of money, some web development companies charge at least $60 an hour for basic websites. Plus you can update it yourself and not have to pay whenever you want to update it. And if you go through the hassle of learning to create websites, you can start or join a web design business.

The biggest bonus for me is that Dreamweaver has a "code hints" function, when I am typing html code, it provides hints on what attributes are available for the tag I am typing in. In the end it is completely up to you, get some trial versions and see which one you like better.

Answer 4

1)I started out using FrontPage years ago and then later switched to Dreamweaver (version 3). I am a professional web developer and I currently use Dreamweaver 8 for most web development otherwise use Eclipse (open source).

Both applications are full-featured Independent Development Environments (IDE). All the basic HTML editing features are available through their own proprietary user interfaces. Both provide multiple development views: code, design, split.

FrontPage has FrontPage extensions which are proprietary scripts that can be used to perform some basic CGI and dynamic functionality. However, the web server must support the FrontPage extensions which can be limiting. FrontPage is also very similar in user interface to its sibling MS Office applications. If you are a heavy Office user with little experience with web development, FrontPage will be easy and intuitive to begin using the application (at the basic level). Other than those reasons, I don't have much recommendation for FrontPage. You won't find many professional developers that use FrontPage as the majority use Dreamweaver, Eclipse or Visual Studio.

FrontPage automatically adds a bunch of unnecessary Microsoft and proprietary code in each new file by default. This code increases page size and can clog non-IE browsers.

Dreamweaver has a lot more functionality. It provides code-hinting for more than just HTML. It will also provide this feature for several other web languages. The CSS panel provides a sophisticated GUI interface for making design changes without knowing CSS. The application integrates seamlessly across other Macromedia products (Fireworks, Flash, ColdFusion, Flex). The next version of Dreamweaver will add seamless integration for Adobe products (Photoshop, Premiere, Spry AJAX Framework). From a production standpoint Adobe and Macromedia are the industry-standard and integration into the workflow make a productive web development environment. Dreamweaver also offers validation of code with a variety of validators (HTML, xHTML, XML, JavaScript, etc.). The Reference Panel provides extensive tag and attribute definitions and samples from the O'Reilly publishers. Adding Flash Video, RSS Aggregation, Flash Buttons, and Rollover Images is as easy as clicking a button on toolbar and completing a dialog wizard. The Files panel has a built-in FTP client with server/local synchronoization functionality (FrontPage may have this now but didn't in the last version that I used.) and an library of assets with preview.

2) I create static sites (HTML, xHTML, SHTML), dynamic web sites (ColdFusion, PHP, Flex via CF components), JavaScript, DHTML, AJAX, and CSS with the Dreamweaver 8.

3) My vote is Dreamweaver. But it really depends on what works best for you. You can download a 30-day trial of Dreamweaver at: http://www.adobe.com/dreamweaver. I believe you also can download a trial of FrontPage from the Microsoft website for a similar period. If you want to develop professionally, I would highly recommend Dreamweaver. You could hire a developer, but I charge $80 - $150 per hour depending on the project and most professionals will be in that range so that may be a lot for a personal site. Just depends on what you need.

Best of Luck.

Answer 5

both the softwares are used for designing static/dynamic internet web site. you could pick as consistent such as your convenience element. My advice is to you Dreamweaver. the distinct between those 2 is, they are made up distinct software vendors. best of luck..